Drain the swamp and there will be no more mosquitoes
By Noam Chomsky, The Guardian, September 9, 2002
By attacking Iraq, the US will invite a new wave of terrorist attacks: September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had better pay much closer attention to what the US government does in the world and how it is perceived. Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda before. That's all to the good. It is also the merest sanity, if we hope to reduce the likelihood of future atrocities. It may be comforting to pretend that our enemies "hate our freedoms," as President Bush stated, but it is hardly wise to ignore the real world, which conveys different lessons.

Terrorism is truly a great evil and we've made it worse
By Hugo Young, The Guardian, September 10, 2002
Our response has done nothing but increase the threat to liberty: A few months after 9/11, I wrote a column alluding to terrorism as the largest threat facing the world, and the campaign against it as inevitably the central concern of all right-thinking governments. The brutal crime committed on that September morning, and the global upheavals that have grown out of it, seemed to engulf all other crises. The event defined international, and even a lot of national, politics. What happened at the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon was inextinguishably prime. I wrote this without much thought. It seemed so obviously true. Such, I think, was the mindset of many people as the year 2001 turned into 2002.

Human Shields, Inhuman Soldiers
By Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, Palestine Chronicle, September 9, 2002
The tragic and unnecessary death of 19-year-old Nidal Muhsin on 14 August highlights Israel's practice of using Palestinian civilians as human shields. According to army sources Nidal was given an Israeli army flak jacket and made to open the door to his neighbour's house. Palestinian witnesses report he was shot dead by IDF fire. The Israeli army claims it was from Palestinian fire. Human rights organisations, local and foreign, have criticised the practice, which the army confirms is used extensively in the Palestinian territories. A petition to prohibit its use has been pending in the Israeli High Court since May this year. Yet after the death of Nidal Israeli minister-without- portfolio Effi Eitam called the use of human shields "very moral", and Israeli army officers defended the practice.

Difficult--but not impossible
By Ghassan Khatib, Bitter Lemons, September 9, 2002
Although there has been a very deep and dangerous deterioration in the relationship between the Palestinian and Israeli governments and their respective publics, this deterioration has not yet become irreversible, mainly because each side’s electorate has an interest in reversing the bloody conflict and returning to peace negotiations. The prolonging of this fight, however, is deepening mutual mistrust and gravely affecting new generations that might have been the vehicle for peace, but are now caught up in a maelstrom of hatred and hostility.

If you will it, it is not a dream
By Shlomo Gazit, Media Monitors Network, September 11, 2002
I have no doubts; it is just a question of time. Once again we shall see delegations of Israel and the Palestinians sitting around the table and renewing their negotiations. The two sides seek it, need it and are ripe for it. I don't know when this will happen, but we have to prepare for that day, now. We cannot permit the process that begins again to end again in crisis and deadlock.